USA spies on EU

areksnumbr1sxylady · 30 Jun 2013 at 15:18

So basically the story now extends...

Apparently there is now further evidence in Snowdenn leaked documents that US gov bugged EU delegations during different summits... Went through their emails and other dirty stuff... Which gave them upper hand in certain negotiations since US knew what the EU was thinking.

Further embarrassment to Germany is that USA lists them as Grade 3 Allies who are not to be trusted, while UK,Australia, New Zealand are 1st grade allies.

EU seems to be very angry with this especially Germany, they take it very personally since they come from Nazi/Stazi background and are horrified that similar ideology is being put on them by their "democratic" friends.

This kinda fits with the idea that UK wants to leave EU, does it look like UK is siding with USA while Europe wants to keep USA away?

I also noticed how interestingly US news talk about snowdenn... Even most "liberal" news channels refer to him as "horrible traitor" who put every Americans citizens life at risk because he leaked this information to Al-Qaeda...

So what are your thoughts on this?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23116517

Stolly · 30 Jun 2013 at 15:28

Thank God someone is keeping tabs on the Germans. I hope some of that information makes its way into our hands.

Destination · 30 Jun 2013 at 15:33

Why next their covert ops teams will be infiltrating and making sure that engines being used by Germans fail in the middle of F1 races.
It'll be awful.

Glaucus · 30 Jun 2013 at 15:35

What I think, is pretty much every country spies on everyone. Nothing new and nothing to be surprised about.

And I couldn't realy give a ****

It's the stupid laws that need retracting, lets start with all the terrorist laws that have come in over the last decade.

deadite66 · 30 Jun 2013 at 15:37

Everyone is spying on everyone else, problem is the more people who have access means more people who may sell private information for their own gain.

Efour · 30 Jun 2013 at 15:38

Agree, everyone spies on everyone. Care factor zero as it doesn't change my pathetic life one iota.

MooMoo444 · 30 Jun 2013 at 15:41

Further embarrassment to Germany is that USA lists them as Grade 3 Allies who are not to be trusted, while UK,Australia, New Zealand are 1st grade allies.

Jerry is untrustworthy!

Stolly · 30 Jun 2013 at 15:43

MooMoo444 said:
Jerry is untrustworthy!

This assessment is made after reading the Hun's mail. So it can only be a fair reflection !

areksnumbr1sxylady · 30 Jun 2013 at 15:45

I personally understand the reality that everyone spies on everyone and government spies on us...

The things is, when similar things were done by Stazi and KGB it caused massive uproar and havoc from western countries...

I also know we dont have gulags, but if extremist activites are spotted the people involved quickly get tagged as terrorists and get shipped to nice places...

Terrorism and Gulags, surely very simmiliar?? Both threat to the government and its people.

Tefal · 30 Jun 2013 at 15:54

the big problem i see is we're building all this infrastructure to monitor the entire population and everyones saying "oh it's fine , i don't care, only got to worry if you've done something wrong".

Maybe you're right at the moment but what happens if things change in future and we end up with a more extreme party in power, we've then handed them the perfect tools to oppress opposition.

Plus there's the issue everyone seems to have forgotten the part we played in the extraordinary rendition process. that was a case were we'd acted to imprison and potentially export to torture people who had not stood trial nor ever would as far as we were concerned.

but no one seems to care :/

Dist · 30 Jun 2013 at 15:56

I'm less concerned about the spying and more that diplomats and other officials don't encrypt sensitive information before sending.

Zbornak · 30 Jun 2013 at 15:57

Glaucus said:
What I think, is pretty much every country spies on everyone. Nothing new and nothing to be surprised about.

I should think it's actually a very small minority of countries that spies on a mass of other countries.

RDM · 30 Jun 2013 at 15:58

I would be more surprised if governments were not spying on each other.

areksnumbr1sxylady · 30 Jun 2013 at 16:04

RDM said:
I would be more surprised if governments were not spying on each other.

but it goes further than that... there are reports that the US government spies not only on Germany but its citizens too via facebook,twitter... whatever.

King Damager · 30 Jun 2013 at 16:04

If you don't think it's not going the other way as well, I feel you're probably a bit naive...

This is also something we can do very little about. Also, the allies make sense... Germany hardly rush in to help the US.

kd

Rroff · 30 Jun 2013 at 16:05

I too use unsecure email when transmitting potentially sensitive information...

aayzof · 30 Jun 2013 at 16:59

Completely unsurprising. :confused:

dowie · 30 Jun 2013 at 17:28

am still surprised that people are shocked by this... yes allies spy on allies. Was quite a few years ago when a former British spy published a book claiming that MI6 had a mole in the German central bank.

Germany, people might have noticed, spies on Switzerland, Lichtenstein etc.. few years ago a German agent working in IT at a Lichtenstein bank was paid over a million to steal client data so that German tax authorities could crack down on tax evasion.

Its hardly surprising that the USA would want as much information as possible about one of its biggest trade partners.

Lazder said:
I personally understand the reality that everyone spies on everyone and government spies on us...

The things is, when similar things were done by Stazi and KGB it caused massive uproar and havoc from western countries...

That's rather different and it shouldn't need much explaining to point out that groups working for authoritarian regimes attempting to control the population as a whole are rather different in nature to groups who are concerned with espionage (for both military and economic purposes), security, counter terrorism, counter espionage and monitoring extremist political or subversive groups. (and as far as that last lot is concerned it is monitoring not bundling off to some camp as a result of their views)

I also know we dont have gulags, but if extremist activites are spotted the people involved quickly get tagged as terrorists and get shipped to nice places...

Terrorism and Gulags, surely very simmiliar?? Both threat to the government and its people.

No not really. We don't ship people to 'nice places' and the USA's policy with Guantanamo is (while abhorrent) not even comparable... it effects relatively few people who are mostly combatants from a war zone (Afghanistan). Not the large scale forced labour (and death) of millions of people for political reasons.

StriderX · 30 Jun 2013 at 17:31

I do like how some people who are utterly in requirement for evidence towards certain "conspirational" items, then speculate that all nations spy on each other...

The only pertinent things in this scenario is that the US has been caught out and no one else has, so to bother with anything other than this is just trying to validate a position that is clearly in the wrong...because...'Merica?

dowie · 30 Jun 2013 at 17:33

Zbornak said:
I should think it's actually a very small minority of countries that spies on a mass of other countries.

yes - and plenty more countries who all spy on their immediate neighbours